


Rainfall

by valfreyja



Category: Daughter of Smoke and Bone - Laini Taylor
Genre: Gen, pre-DOBAS epilogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valfreyja/pseuds/valfreyja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ziri is a stranger in his own body. </p><p>"They say you can never be the same person you were when you left on a journey or an adventure. The same is doubly true after you’ve fought blood and ashes just to make it to another battle. Even if they both make it out of the upcoming storm alive, there’s no telling what might have changed by then. Maybe, Ziri thinks with a grimace, he won’t want to part with the body of the White Wolf anymore."</p><p>A short piece about Ziri, trapped in the body of a brutal war-machine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rainfall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Kayla, my DOSAB secret Santa! <3

Ziri watches the rainfall from a window tucked far away from any prying human eyes. He wonders what it would be like to go outside and to tilt his face up into the rain and let it wash over him. Would it be like before, back when his body was his own, when he was Ziri and no one could ever argue otherwise? What would rain feel like when it was falling through increasingly matted wolf’s fur instead of the soft, downy fuzz he used to know as his own skin?

He leans his head against the frame and breathes deeply, the earthy smell of rain invading his nose too fast, too strongly. It shouldn’t be this heavy a smell. The smell of rain, of cleansing, of new life, is always pure, always soft like the caress of a mother. It shouldn’t invade like the smell of manure does. This is _wrong_ , too extreme. These senses are too keen, too alert. He knows it will be a blessing if it ever comes to battle, but Ziri doesn’t want to spend his entire life waiting for someone else to attack him. Ending a perpetual war is the whole point.

Then again, he doesn’t even know if he has an entire life left. None of them do. It’s a luxury not afforded to chimera like him, especially not revenant soldiers like him. Sure, he’s almost guaranteed rebirth if he dies, but never for himself, never in a body of his own choosing, never because he wants to. Only because he _has_ to.

Ziri watches the rain for a few more moments before his ears pick up soft footsteps coming closer. He turns—ever alert, godstars dammit—and watches Karou come into the room, her movements almost as liquid as the rain.

“Hey,” she says. Though the room is dark, Ziri still notices the deep circles under Karou’s eyes, the weariness in her voice. Her clothes are old, unwashed, and there is a small streak of dried blood from a cut on her chin. Old bruises, in full bloom, are scattered across her arms. Her braid is messy, starting to tangle. Ziri wonders whether she’ll ever really be Madrigal— _Karou—_ again, whether she’ll be able to laugh as brightly and as fully as she once did, whether she wonders and worries about what the point of all this is, like he’s started to.

“Hey.” At least his voice is still a surprise to him. Every time he speaks, it’s that awful, almost-growl of Thiago’s that comes out, not his own, not the voice that was _his_ own for so long. He’s learned not to jump at the sound of his own voice anymore, but it’s only a reminder that he’ll become used to this too, and finally lose another thing that made him Ziri Kirin.

Karou gestures to the cityscape right outside the window. “Prague is beautiful in the rain, isn’t it?”

Ziri turns back to the window and almost has to look away. Focusing on just one thing is good, it make things easy, but trying to take in the whole picture is a nightmare; there’s too much going on, too much movement to appreciate the liquid, moving beauty of a city like he might have before. “How the hell did Thiago do it?”

“What?”

“This body—it’s awful. It’s good at fighting and killing. That’s it.” He puts his arm across his forehead and leans against the frame again. Another thing he misses. His horns. Gazelle’s horns that sometimes made sleeping a pain in the ass, but he misses them all the same, he misses knowing that he has a weapon built right into his head, he misses one of the major markers of his being a survivor of the Kirin. Ziri without his horns is like Akiva without the angst.

“That explains a lot about Thiago, I guess,” she replies, turning to look at him. Her expression, though still tired, is serene.

“I hope he’s rotting,” Ziri spits. He startles himself, because the venom in his voice fits in so perfectly with Thiago’s growls. _You’re not like this_ , Ziri reminds himself, not for the first time since settling in this Ellai-forsaken body, _you’re not him_.

“Tell you what,” Karou says, a wry smile curving across her face, “next time one of us dies, we’ll go and make sure he is. And if he isn’t—” She flashes him an almost maniacal grin. “Deal?”

“Deal.” Somehow, a smile starts to tug at Ziri’s— _Thiago’s_ —lips too, though he can’t push it all the way, even if he’d wanted to. It feels awkward. It feels wrong. And it feels like he’s disrespecting his own self, his old body, to be laughing, smiling in someone else’s body.

Karou reaches out and lets her hand rest on his thick, white hand. She looks at him, her gaze piercing, knowing. “We’ll be done with this soon. I promise.”

“I can’t stand much more—”

“When we’re done,” her eyes settle on watching her hand on his and she seems like she’s talking more to herself than to him, “I’m going to make you a body exactly like your old one. A perfect copy.”

If there’s one thing years of endless fighting have taught him, it’s that promises like these never come to pass. Everything always changes; people, thoughts, dreams, places, are always left scarred by the grit and grime of war. They say you can never be the same person you were when you left on a journey or an adventure. The same is doubly true after you’ve fought blood and ashes just to make it to another battle. Even if they both make it out of the upcoming storm alive, there’s no telling what might have changed by then. Maybe, Ziri thinks with a grimace, he won’t want to part with the body of the White Wolf anymore.

But Ziri isn’t actually the White Wolf yet. He’s still Ziri, and he will always fight to stay Ziri, no matter what it takes him. And Ziri is Madrigal’s shadow, her protector, her friend, and he is kind and gentle and pure, like the scent of fresh rain should be. “I would like that,” he says.

Karou smiles and their hands draw away from each other. They stare out the window, Karou probably taking in the city one last time before they meet up with everyone else, he, focusing on the rain, and only on the rain.

“And you, Karou?” Ziri says, after a while. “Do you want to go back to being Madrigal?” It’s a question that’s been on his mind for a while now.

A few minutes passes before she answers. Ziri crosses his arms. “No,” she says, reaching a hand out the window and into the rain. “I can’t go back to being someone who feels like more of a dream than a memory. I’m _Karou_ , not Madrigal, and I haven’t been Madrigal for a very long time now.”

“Not even—?”

“Nothing you say could make me consider it, Ziri. I’ve never thought about it until now, and I don’t think I ever will again.” She brings her hand back inside and wipes it on her shirt.

“I understand,” is all Ziri can say. And he does understand. Truly. Karou’s body is her own, the same way his body used to be. It was made for her by someone as deeply loved as a father; nourished and cherished by someone as deeply loved as a mother. Maybe she doesn’t feel exactly this way, but if Karou considers her body her anchor, then now, more than ever, Ziri understands.

Bodies aren’t simply envelopes to be thrown away when functionally useless. Bodies are homes, temples, shrines of the soul. A soul in the wrong body is an unhappy soul. He isn’t the first, in the process of endless revenancy, to feel trapped in a house too large, too brutal to be ever comfortable. If things go the way they are meant to, he won’t certainly be the last, either.

Maybe one day, Karou’s eyes will light up with laughter again. Maybe one day, he’ll be able to fly, feel the sweet sky on his tongue again. Maybe one day, the feeling of rain running between his fingers will be _his_ own, and not borrowed from some other. Maybe one day, there will be a Ziri again, whole and true, and this ugly, brutal body will burn to ash—gray, painful, suffocating ash.

For now though, Ziri forces himself to be content with watching the rain, Karou watching the city silently at his side. With his eyes closed and his focus only on the sound of the rain, he can almost imagine a warm, spring shower in Loramendi, almost smell the soft, gentle smell of the damp earth heralding the start of the planting season, almost remember a time when he was whole and happy. Almost.

**Author's Note:**

> Why are they in Prague? Maybe Karou needed to tie up some loose ends before heading off to Eretz. Who knows. Just indulge me. :)  
> Also, please excuse any typos/inconsistencies... Orz


End file.
